


Children of the Cataclysm

by Chell_Sky



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Magic, Memory Loss, Temporary Character Death, kind of destiny/warframe fusion but not really, like lot of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-07-13 14:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16019822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chell_Sky/pseuds/Chell_Sky
Summary: Humanity is waging war against the darkness underneath the watchful eye of their Second Sun. Its warriors form both first and last line of defense, but in order to protect anything, they must first grow strong themselves. And as a newly created warrior is about to learn: the path towards strength is as long as it is inevitable.





	1. Awake

The first time he woke up, it took him all of 20 seconds to get himself killed. It wasn’t really his fault, honest. The ground was made of dust and bones more than anything else, and the only thing that was not darkness, was the small light in the shape of a butterfly that he stumbled blindly towards. The thought of getting left in this place alone poured ice into his veins and robbed him of any thought that wasn’t focused on following the light as quickly as he could.

 

Perhaps if he was focusing at what the light was illuminating, insead of the light itself, he could’ve seen the pit before the mess of bones and dust underneath his feet slipped and dragged him over the edge for a moment of terrifying free fall and subsequent broken spine as he bounced off a piece of metal sticking out off the wall, but he wasn’t and paid the price. He never felt his body hit the floor.

 

There was a flash of light and then a pained yowl, as he found himself flailing around at enemies that weren’t there and managing to punch a wall in his panic. He clutched his injured hand to his chest and looked around wildly trying to figure out what happened.

 

No answers were forthcoming, only the steady light of the butterfly floating next to him. Its light seemed to almost leech the adrenalin from his veins, and he straightened up feeling somewhat calm for the first time.

 

He nodded to the butterfly that bobbed in the air like it was nodding back, and continued on into the darkness. He followed, slightly warier of the floor now, even if this one seemed more stable that the one he woke up on.

 

It seemed like an eternity that he spent in this place. The panic inside him bubbled again, as the darkness pressed around him, oppressive, and he wanted _out out out._

 

A terrifying thought struck him then- what if this was it? What if the butterfly was the only light left?

 

_No, surely, that’s not it._

 

The butterfly stopped in front of a wall, made a circle in the air to pull his attention to it and then bounced of the wall a few times. It didn’t take a genius to understand what it wanted.

 

_Surely there’s something out there,_

 

He leaned into the wall, feet scrambling for purchase on the floor, throwing up sand everywhere, until he found solid floor underneath and managed to truly _push_.

 

_Something bright and beautiful,_

 

The metal underneath his hands groaned in protest, and he closed his eyes, filled his lungs with the stale air and gave everything he had in him to a simple act of _pushing._

 

_Something that gives light and life to everything it touches,_

 

The metal shifted with horrible noise and sand filled the air, and he barely registered he was yelling with exertion as the wall ever so slowly gave.

 

_Something like…_

 

With last roar he tipped the metal plate over, letting it crash into the ground outside and tilted his head towards the sky, towards…

  
  
_The Sun._

 

Light cascaded down around him, and he spread his arms to welcome it, feeling it seeping throughout his body, down to his very bones. It felt warm, and wonderful and _safe_ and he never wanted to leave.

 

He didn’t know how long he spent simply basking in the light before he noticed it. He frowned up at the sky, feeling of _wrongness_ settling in his gut. He had no memory of ever looking up at a sky before, but there was something in him that knew… things. It knew about sun, but it also knew…

 

_Sun isn’t supposed to look like that._

 

Instead of a bright smooth orb above him, there was a crack. Like sky was made of glass and someone put a bullet in it, except the bullet was light that then seeped into all the cracks it caused. He stretched his hands towards it and froze as it came into his field of view.

 

_Human hand isn’t supposed to look like that either._

 

He could see his bones attached to each other by thin strings of flesh, looking like somebody tried to rebuild his body, but stopped about 20 percent in. He wanted to scream, to claw at his face, but all he could do was to stay still, paralyzed with terror, chest heaving as he stood there staring at his hand, too afraid to look down, for fear of what he might see.

It was just as his vision started to darken around the edges something brushed against his cheek and the butterfly fluttered into his field of view. Its light once again shooed his racing heart, and he watched as it landed on his outstretched hand. It stayed there for a moment, wings outstretched, like it too was basking in the light and he slowly brought it closer to his face, fascinated by the little creature. Now that he could look at it up close and in the light, he saw that only its main body actually glowed, its wings simply reflecting the light, being almost pure white, with patterns across them in gunmetal grey.

 

As he was looking at it, the butterfly’s light flared and flowed into him, quickly engulfing his whole arm in warmth that then moved to the rest of his body. He watched in shock as the light coalesced into fully formed muscles, that the second flare from the butterfly covered with skin and third with cloth.

 

The lightshow abated, leaving him kneeling in the sand, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. No answer materialized, the butterfly resuming its sunning like nothing happened so instead he gathered his courage and looked down to inspect himself.

 

The clothes the butterfly gifted him was the same beige color as the sand around him and covered him head to toe and were strangely cool despite the (not?) sun bearing down at him. Struck by a sudden desire to know what he looked like underneath that, he started pulling at the glove covering his other hand. It took some doing, as the suit didn’t seem to be designed to come off, but eventually he managed to take it off, with only a mild tearing.

 

The skin underneath was rich brown, and seemed to glitter underneath the light like there were stars trapped in it. It was as beautiful as it was odd.

 

The butterfly didn’t seem to share his opinion however and fluttered agitatedly in front of his face before landing on his uncovered hand and recreating the glove in a similar lighshow from before, leaving him with one extra glove in his other hand. He let go of it and watched as it disintegrated into motes of light before it even hit the ground.

 

He stared at them as they slowly winked out one by one, before shaking his head and finally looking around. As he already peripherally noticed he was in a desert, and as he looked around he realized that besides half buried spaceship behind him, that was pretty much it. Just desert as far as the eye could see.

 

Well, he wouldn't gain anything by staying here so he stood up, having fallen to his knees somewhere during his breakdown, picked a direction at random and started walking, gladly leaving the spaceship filled with darkness behind him.

 

The sand piled up in huge dunes all around him even more unstable and prone to shifting underneath his feet than the one in the spaceship, but even so he found walking easier. Somehow his body was lighter, more invigorated. Maybe it had something to do with him now possessing complete muscle structure, or maybe it was the light all around him, reflected back at him from the sand, or maybe something completely different, but the point stood that even as he walked faster and faster upwards a steep dune he didn’t feel any fatigue. Soon he found himself going from speed walking to light jogging. Then to running. Then to sprinting. His breathing sped up as his feet pounded into the ground faster and faster, but his body didn’t seem to get tired. In fact, the more he ran, the more he felt as if he was _truly_ waking up for the first time.

 

He crested one dune, tripped on nothing, and tumbled down the other side. With next one he managed to get all his limbs under control for long enough to slide down. As he was cresting another one something seemed to awaken within him and instead of continuing to fight against ever-shifting sand he jumped. However instead of a simple jump, his body seemingly with mind of his own _leaped_. His body twirled in the air, guided by foreign instincts, and he suddenly found himself half a dozen meters in the air, looking at the desert stretching out below him for a frozen moment, before the gravity remembered his existence and he plummeted down to earth.

 

He landed in a cloud of dust, without even a twinge of pain from falling from such height and he felt laughter bubbling in his throat. He looked back the way he came and saw a mote of light streaking towards him. The butterfly.

 

He extended his hands toward it and it tickled his palm with its wings before circling around his head exitedly. Something in his head told him that butterfly shouldn't be able to fly so fast, but then again- that something seem to be wrong about more things than it was right. In some ways that fact was mildly terrifying, but in others it was oddly freeing.

 

 _Blank slate._ Something in his mind whispered.

 

 _Yeah_ . He thought looking over seemingly infinite plain of sand around him. _That seems about right._

 

That was when he heard shooting.

 

He was taking cover behind the dune he was standing on before his conscious mind even identified the sound, but even that caught on quick.

 

No shots landed near him, and he didn’t see anybody in the apex of his jump, and it didn’t sound like a sniper rifle either, so the shots most likely weren’t aimed at him. The question then was: at who?

 

He pulled his legs underneath him and sprang into the air, even higher now than before. Nothing again, unsurprising given how tall the dunes around him were.

 

He landed again and looked over to the butterfly that was hanging in the air at his eye level, somehow managing to look expectantly while being barely a centimeter long. That was all he needed.

 

He leaped over the dunes in the direction of the gunfire, like a bullet. Something in him whispered how foolish it was to race into a conflict he knew nothing about, unarmed and unarmored, but he shut it away. It has already been wrong about so many things, he wasn’t about to go listening to it again. Especially not with strangely alluring barking of guns getting closer every leap.

 

He burst into the battlefield in a cloud of sand, and used the half a second of cover it gave him to analyze the situation.

 

To his right there was an overturned vehicle with a couple of people hiding behind it clutching guns in their hands, and to his left taking cover behind a low dune were…

 

_Aliens._

 

He hit the ground, rolled, and immediately sprang forward towards the aliens. He had no weapon only speed and surprise on his side. He would have to move fast.

 

Two of the aliens swung his guns towards him, leaving only one of them to lay down covering fire towards humans. He only barely managed to touch the ground and dart perpendicular to the aliens on his next leap, before the the space he occupied milliseconds before was filled with streaks of plasma.

 

He zig-zagged towards the aliens keeping low to the ground, feeling the plasma whiz by him. The aliens yelled something unintelligible, and then he was in range.

 

He kicked off towards the big one, and latched onto his gun. The last alien aimed at him, but couldn't shoot without risking hitting his own ally. The big alien swung his weapon around trying to dislodge him, but he wrapped his arm fully around the gun and used his other hand to claw at the alien’s faceplate.

 

He just managed to hook fingers underneath the edge, when something grabbed his body with a crushing force and threw him away from the alien. He hit the ground and desperately rolled to the side as he heard more gunfire, but he wasn't fast enough and his side lit up with pain.

 

Somehow he managed to jump to his feet and just as his vision cleared he found himself looking down the barrel of the alien gun. Next thing he knew most of his brain was replaced by white hot plasma.

 

There was a brief moment of darkness, before, suddenly he was awake again, the butterfly fluttering away from his face. Before he could even process what happened his body leaped up on its own accord, and the ground below him was being melted into glass.

 

He landed near the third alien suppressing the humans that scrambled away and swung its gun towards him. Before it could press the trigger however, a stream of bullets thudded against the back of its helmet throwing it forward. It wasn’t dead, merely stunned for a moment, but that was all he needed. He dashed forward, more plazma from the other two aliens trailing after him, and snatched the alien’s gun from its hands.

 

Something in his head, the same something that insisted that the thing in the sky wasn’t a sun, told him that the gun he was holding was too alien for him to know how to use, but at the same time the instinct that showed him how to leap guided his hands to correct places and he finished off the stunned alien as he was leaping above it.

 

He touched down on the other side of the dune, gaining some much needed breathing space, and dashed around to come at the remaining aliens from the side. He was already pressing down the trigger when they came back into his line of sight.

 

The smaller alien jumped away from his shots, but the bigger one simply braced himself and returned fire. He avoided the shots, but then the smaller alien joined in and cut off his avenue of escape. He was forced to jump into the air, and he watched as the alien aimed right at him before getting a face full of glowing butterfly.

 

The alien jerked back swatting at butterfly. It recovered quickly, but by that time he was already right in front of him, pumping his chest full of plazma. He yanked its gun out of its hands and put its body between him and the last alien. He sent a torrent of plazma towards it and it reciprocated sending him once again plummeting into darkness before he was yanked back into the light.

 

He threw the now gibbed corpse of alien off him aiming his gun back at the big one in the same motion. It was wounded, he noticed, clutching at wounds in its midsection. It tried to level its gun back at him, but before it could, he already crossed the distance separating them, pressed the barrel of his gun into its faceplate and pumped the rest of the magazine into his head.

 

The silence that descended then seemed almost unnatural compared to the chaos of last few moments. He looked around at the aliens’ corpses to make sure none of them managed to somehow survive, and when they didn’t stir he breathed a sigh of relief and bendt down to inspect them more fully.

 

He didn’t really had time to notice anything about them during the fighting, his mind lazer focused on their guns and where they were pointing them, but now he could finally look them over. The first thing he noticed was that these aliens had 6 limbs instead of 4. The upper ones served as hands with the lower two pairs being stacked almost on top of each other and serving as legs, but with the ones in the middle looking like they could be used as additional pair of hands in a pinch. Those must be what the big guy used to throw him away the first time.

 

Any more details of their bodies was concealed by dull metallic armor in various shades of sand, without any additional decoration or even indication of rank that he could see.

 

He walked over to the first alien and pried of its helmet. Inside was what looked like a wolf’s head if you turned it on it’s side, mirrored it’s upper part, and instead of fur covered it with spines. It wasn’t actually as ugly as he was half expecting.

 

He shook those idle thoughts away and quickly stripped the aliens of their ammo, trusting the foreign light in his head to guide him in reloading weapons and slipping the rest of the magazines? Is that what they were called when dealing with plasma weapons? Either way he slipped them into the various pouches on his clothes, that seemed to also get repaired when he came back from the dead.

 

Huh. That’s right he did that. He didn’t really registered it during the combat, or back on the ship, where he was too desperate to get out to think about anything at all, but now it crashed down on him. He came back from the dead. Multiple times in fact. That… wasn’t normal. Was it?

 

His instincts churned in his head, half of them telling him that, no this wasn’t normal and that he should be freaking out about it right now, and the other half telling him that, of course this was all absolutely normal. After all he just did it twice in a quick succession and didn’t even feel any different, right?

 

The butterfly landed on his shoulder and he reached out to them, transferred them to his hand and lifted them up in front of his face to inspect them. Thankfully they didn’t seem to be hurt by their kamikaze stunt with the second alien, which he was grateful for. One thing he was certain of was that the butterfly had _something_ to do with his inexplicable immortality, even if he didn’t know how exactly.

 

 _Who are you?_ He thought towards them turning his hand around to inspect them from all angles. _What do you have to do with all this?_

 

The butterfly simply spread their wings and continued to bask in the sun(?)light. He sighted smiling wryly at them and transferred them back to his shoulder.

 

He carefully peaked over the dune, to inspect the humans he just assisted. He saw one of them peaking curiously over their improvised cover, before being pulled down by one of their companions.

 

The glint of a rifle made him instinctively duck behind cover too, before he realized that... that wasn’t necessary for him was it? Even if he was shot he’d just come back almost immediately, no? And he’d get to fight some more as a bonus.

 

With that thought he stood up and strutted down the dune towards humans with confidence of a newly born immortal.


	2. Agitated

 

Nobody shot him on his way towards the vehicle the humans were hiding behind, and they weren’t even aiming their guns at him when they came out to meet him. He returned the courtesy, holding his gun loosely at his side, not quite put away but not an immediate thread either.

 

They stood some distance apart, close enough to make starting a gunfight unpleasant for either party, but also far away enough so that getting into close combat would take a precious few seconds.

 

He watched somewhat amused as the trio of humans that came out to meet him nudged each other, until one of them seemed to be chosen as the spokesperson, and stepped forward.

 

“Hello!” she crooned with wide grin, prompting a winces from the other two humans.

 

He returned her wave and attempted to say hello back. Attempted being the imperative word there.

 

As it was, the hello seemed to catch in his throat, do a somersault there, and then shred his vocal chords on its way up, dragging itself up from his mouth in the form of explosive cough that made him bend over with the force of it.

 

He straightened up just in time to catch a tail end of a look the humans were sharing amongst themselves. He cleared his throat and went to wipe his eyes, but was foiled by goggles affixed to his face. Seemed the butterfly could create more than flesh and cloth.

 

He cleared his throat again, and managed to croak out a broken: “Hello.”

 

The wind howled, as they stood in silence, him not sure how to proceed and unwilling to tear his throat for false starts, and humans having their own hangups. Or maybe they enjoyed standing in the middle of the desert in half-stand off, half stalled conversation, what did he know?

 

“Uhm…” the spokeswoman seemed taken aback, but she rallied  herself affixing the grin on her face again. “Thanks for saving our butts back there! We’d be toast if it weren’t for you. I know we probably won’t be able to help you with whatever mission you have out here, if you _do_ need anything just say the word.”

 

There was only one thing he needed right now.

 

“Answers.”

 

Spokeswoman frowned confused, “You mean… you have questions?”

 

On his nod she started grinning again.

 

“Well then shoot! I don’t know how much help I’ll be but I’ll do my best.”

 

At that moment the scale of all that he didn’t know paralyzed him. How could he encompass the sheer scale of all that he didn’t know in one question? What should he ask? Which of the milliards of questions barely formed in his mind was the most important?

 

In the end he decided to start small. “Where am I?”

 

“Well, we’re in a Opka desert? If that’s what you’re asking?” she looked around as if to confirm that they were indeed still in the desert, “I can’t give you coordinates straight from my head, I’m afraid. Why? Did you crash land?” She clapped her hands together. “Oh! Do you need a lift to the Relay?”

 

He cleaned his throat again as the butterfly flew from his shoulder to his throat. Their light flared slightly and his throat felt slightly better.

 

“Relay?” he asked.

 

That seemed to bring the spokeswoman up short, grin slipping off her face. “You… don’t know about the Relay?”

 

He shook his head, “I don’t know about anything.” he looked down at his hands, the emptiness in his head where memories were supposed to be suddenly seeming to yawn impossibly wide.

 

“I just woke up,” he swept his hand over the surrounding desert, “somewhere out there.”

 

He looked back at the spokeswoman, “I don’t…” he trailed off frowning as the spokeswoman took half a step back, and the other humans drew themselves up, the whole group more wary now.

 

“Oh…” she said, “I see.”

 

She twitched her head to the side, took a deep breath, and slowly clasped her gun to her back.

 

“You can come with us then,” she offered, earning a sharp look from her companions, “The people in the Relay will be able to explain things to you better than us.”

 

The thought of having to wait even longer to learn anything wasn’t exactly appealing to him. “Can you explain at least some things?”

 

“I mean, yeah,” she shifted from foot to foot and shot a glance backwards to the vehicle, “but it would need to be on the road. We need to move out to join the rest of the caravan, so they won’t leave us behind, so we can’t play twenty questions right now.”

 

He hummed his acknowledgment, and that seemed to bolster her confidence, “So you’ll come with us then?”

 

He gave a half shrug half nod, and she grinned at him before turning and jogging towards the vehicle, gesturing for other humans to follow her. One of them did, but the other stayed where he was, looking at him intently.

 

He returned his stare, silence stretching out between the two of them. The human’s hands tensed on his gun, and he tilted his head downwards, his heartbeat speeding up.

 

“Hey Rook!” shouted one of the humans at the vehicle, “Stop ogling the warrior and give us a hand!”

 

The tension broke, as the human relaxed his grip on his gun, and after shooting him one last look, turned around on his heel and marched towards the others. He followed after him after a moment, running his fingers across the butterfly’s back to calm his racing heart.

 

The humans of which there were about half a dozen, were gathered around the vehicle hotly debating something. The vehicle itself looked like a rounded cylinder that has been cut in half lengthwise. On its underside there were circular plates that looked important, but otherwise it lacked wheels or any obvious method of propulsion.

 

“Alright! Let’s try one more time and get everyone in there!” One of the humans, presumably their leader, called out, and crouched next to the vehicle grabbing its side, that was half buried in the sand. The rest of the humans lined up next to her, and she called out, “On three! One! Two! Three!”

 

The humans all pulled grunting with exertion, but their overturned vehicle didn’t even budge.

 

“Damn it!” the human leader straightened up and kicked up a cloud of sand, breathing heavily, “We didn’t survive a vulfen ambush just to starve in the desert!”

She ran her hand through her hair and looked around as if the answer for their predicament would jump out at her from beneath the sand. One of the other humans, actually the same one that tried to stare him down before, approached her and steered her away from the other humans with a soft touch on her arm.

 

“We could try to send up a flare. They would probably send someone after us.” He spoke softly leaning down towards her.

 

“Yes and so would any vulfen pack in ten kilometer radius.” she retorted through gritted teeth.

 

“At least we’d have something to keep that guy busy.” the guy twitched his head towards him, and the leader shot him a glance across her shoulder. He folded his arms. Talking about him like he wasn’t even there was quite rude. Did they think he couldn’t hear them?

 

Whatever they were going to talk about next was interrupted by the spokeswoman. “Hey can’t we ask him for help?” she asked pointing at him.

 

“Dani!” human leader hissed, but he interrupted her before she could say anything else.

 

“What are you trying to do?” he asked, coming closer.

 

“We’re trying to turn this thing rightways again,” spokeswoman explained, “The vulfen startled me and I tried to make too sharp turn.” she lowered her eyes, looking away from everyone, before shaking herself out of it. “Anyway if we want to get anywhere in this desert we’re gonna need to get this baby back on its wheels.”

 

He nodded and tilted his head at the vehicle. First he tried the same thing as humans, gripping the side of it and lifting with all his might. The vehicle shook and groaned, prompting gasps from humans, but it showed no sign of tipping over even by the time his attempts left him buried halfway to his knees in the sand.

 

He let go and pulled himself out of the sand. Shaking it from his boots, he narrowed his eyes at the vehicle. This wasn’t something that could be solved with brute force, at least not with the amount available to him right now. Pushing on the side of the vehicle would be more efficient but since the vehicle lacked a roof and its nose was buried almost entirely in the sand there was nowhere to push.

 

He circled the vehicle, trying to ignore the itch between his shoulder blades as all of the human’s eyes followed him.

 

Finishing his circuit he tapped the butterfly still resting on his throat thoughtfully. _I wonder how much I weigh._ He mused. And then he sprung forward.

 

Someone yelped as he landed feet first at the wall of the vehicle sticking out of the sand and kicked off with as much force as he could. The vehicle groaned and… shifted?

 

He touched ground hand first and pivoted around it, kicking up a sheet of sand and sprung back at the vehicle. He nailed the wall again this time he definitely felt it shift. He repeated the maneuver again and again, each time kicking off the same place as before and making the vehicle shift more and more. He didn’t realize how accurate his leaps were before this. During the fight he used them to get away from things, and he didn’t need much accuracy for that. But now despite the railing being no thicker than his forearm he never over or undershot it.

 

The vehicle teetered on its edge for a moment before last push sent it crashing down on its underside amid a cloud of dust and humans cheering.

 

“Fuck yes!” cried the spokeswoman jumping to her feet and punching the air.

 

She ran towards the vehicle and stroked its side, “Back on your wheels are you baby?” she cooed to it, before turning to him with brilliant smile.

 

“That was awesome!” she bounced towards him in her excitement, but the human leader came striding towards her and yanked her back by her collar.

 

They exchanged looks and the spokeswoman shrank back beneath her gaze, and turned away from him. The other woman turned her attention to rest of the humans and started yelling orders: “Alright everyone get on! And keep your weapons on you and eyes peeled! We’re not out of the woods until we rejoin the caravan!”

 

The humans scrambled to obey, and she turned back to woman next to her, “You take the wheel.”

 

The spokeswoman shrank  even further and the human leader let go of her collar to clap her shoulder, “Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”

 

The spokeswoman glanced at her but she already turned her attention to him.

 

“Dani told me you have questions. And also wanted a lift to the Relay?” the tilt in her voice turned the last statement into question. He never told spokeswoman that he wanted to go to the Relay, not even implied it, she simply assumed. Irritating as that was, it was either that or continue wandering the desert, and while that was peaceful…

 

“Are those things common around here?” he asked, jerking his head towards the direction vulfen corpses laid.

 

“Not at all.” the human leader scrunched her nose, “We’ve gotten really bad luck running into a patrol like this.”

 

While he processed that, her gaze turned piercing and as if reading his mind she added, “They’ll be able to tell you where they are in the Relay. And reward you for getting rid of them.”

 

That decided it, “I’ll go the Relay with you then.”

 

“Very well,” she nodded, “Get in then. We’ll have to rejoin the rest of the caravan before heading towards the Relay, but it should still be faster than if you run. You can ask me questions once we’re on the road too.”

 

“You?”

 

“Yes? Who else?” she narrowed her eyes at him.

 

“The woman who met me, uh… Dani?” The name tasted strange on his tongue, “She offered to answer my questions.”

 

The human leader crossed her arms, “She’ll be too busy driving. I will do my best to answer any of your questions although… I may not be able to answer everything. I am no scholar.”

 

“You’re more than me.” he said before snapping his mouth shut so fast his teeth clicked together. Where did that come from? The human leader was looking at him curiously, but he brushed past her before she could say anything, and jumped into the vehicle.

 

He almost landed on someone only managing to twist himself away in the nick of time. One of the humans hissed at him in annoyance, but others scooted away giving him space and he took the opportunity to look around.

 

Most of the humans were seated in two rows of seats in the middle, facing away from each other, but three were standing near the walls holding onto handholds bolted into them, slightly crouched so their heads wouldn’t peek over the edges of the vehicle. Towards the front the spokeswoman was laying strapped in some sort of reclined chair with some sort of helmet with multitudes of cables leading from it on her head.

 

She didn’t react to his entrance like the rest of the humans, but before he could enquire about that the human leader scrambled into the vehicle and tapped on a wall.

 

Without any visible command from any of the humans, the vehicle shuddered to life beneath his feet and slowly rose into the air. He straightened up to watch as the scenery around fall. There was a snicker from one of the humans and he turned to them, when the humming of the engines rose in pitch and the butterfly fluttered their wings against his throat with sudden urgency. He barely managed duck his head before the vehicle rocketed forward like a bat out of hell.

 

He stumbled slightly but managed to keep his footing. Once he was stable he looked up, careful to keep his head below the walls like the rest of the standing humans, who were all clutching the handholds with white-knuckled grip.

 

It was hard to judge their speed with only having view of the sky. There was no wind in the vehicle, despite the open roof, which suggested that they weren’t going that fast, but the way he was almost thrown off his feet by acceleration opposed that theory.

 

He glanced around the humans, but they didn’t seem to want to start expositing the workings of their transport so he decided to investigate on his own. He reached up, slowly enough that humans could notice and stop him if him doing this would break something. Nobody did though, and when his fingers reached higher than the vehicle’s walls they were suddenly buffered by gale force winds.

 

He tensed his arm and managed to keep it from being blown back, even in the face of it going from air that was completely still, to wind strong enough to knock him off his feet, with no inbetween.

 

“There’s a force field there,” volunteered one of the humans, and truly when he peered intently at where his fingers breached the invisible barrier, he could see just barely visible shimmer in the air.

 

“Why not just have a ceiling?” he asked letting his arm fall to his side.

 

The human shrugged, “We didn’t design these vehicles, don’t ask me.”

 

He huffed. Who else should he ask then? Before he could pose that question to the speaker, the human leader got his attention.

 

“You said you had questions.”

 

He turned to her just in time to catch a tail end of some sort of sharp gesture she was aiming at the humans he was talking to, but she refocused on him quickly. “We have some time so I can try to answer them now.”

 

He looked around trying to find some idea on what to ask first. No questions about the vehicle, apparently they didn’t know anything about that, but all that that criteria left was the sky and…

 

_The Sun?_

 

He pointed up and the human leader followed his finger, squinting. “Is it supposed to look... like that?” he asked not sure how to exactly describe why the thing in the place of the sun seemed so unfamiliar when compared to say… sky or sand.

 

“Ah, well…” she seemed to consider the question, tapping her chin thoughtfully, “no?”

 

“At least it didn’t always look like that, according to the history” she thankfully elaborated, before he could feel much more than spark of irritation of her non-answer, “We call it the Second Sun. It has taken its place in the sky after the first one was extinguished.”

 

“Extinguished?”

 

“Yes. No one knows what exactly happened. The records from that time are pretty much non-existent, and those that survived tend to be contradictory. What we do know is this: humanity was at war with an alien thread and losing. Their sun got extinguished, nobody knows how or by whom, and the Second Sun, who until then was supporting humanity from the background took its place. And then you showed up and helped the humanity drive the aliens back.”

 

“Me?” he interrupted.

 

“No not you you,”she shook her head, “I mean people like you. Warriors.” she specified.

 

He waited for a shock from the revelation that he wasn’t one of a kind, but it simply didn’t come. It seemed obvious the same way the working of the alien gun that was slung across his shoulder seemed obvious, that he wasn’t alone.

 

“The Second Sun sent you down to help humanity in our war against the enemy.” the human leader continued, and that… that actually didn’t ring as true.

 

“Says who?” he challenged.

 

The human leader blinked up at him taken aback, “What?”

 

“Who said that we are here to help humanity?”

 

“Well…” she drawled, unsure, but one of the other humans beat her to an answer.

 

“The oldest Warriors presumably.”

 

Both his and the human leader’s head swiveled to the speaker, and she grinned and continued.

 

“The legend says they came out of the wastelands one day, glowing with unearthly light and capable of defeating entire armies with one sweep of their hand and they proclaimed themselves heralds of The Second Sun, here to lift humanity up from the dark age!”

 

The human leader gave a huff that seemed half amused and half impressed, while he looked to the sky thoughtfully.

 

The idea of erasing entire armies with ease like that seemed far fetched. He could possibly take on an army, given enough time and patience but to defeat one with just a sweep of his hand…

 

“Are they really that powerful?” he asked.

 

On seeing the human’s confused gaze he elaborated: “The older warriors. Can they really kill armies just like that?”

“Well I’m not exactly the person to ask you know. I’ve never seen a Warrior in the flesh so to speak, before this. I just hear rumors.”

 

“People like us don’t generally meet many Warriors.” the human leader said.

 

“People like you?”

 

“Civilians, essentially.”

 

He narrowed his eyes at her, “You don’t look like civilians.”

 

She smiled wryly, “The definition of civilian became quite broad in the last few decades.”

 

It was bold of him to assume his instincts would be correct in what a civilian looked like anyway. Her answer did bring up another question.

 

“How long ago was it? When the first Warriors showed up?”

 

The human leader huffed and leaned on the wall, “I honestly don’t know. Pretty long ago?” she looked at other humans in askance.

 

“Two hundred something years ago, I think?” someone answered.

 

Oh.

 

He turned his head back towards the sky, letting the chatter of the humans as they tried to hammer out a more precise number that that wash over him, as he tried to wrap his head around that. He knew what the word year meant, same way he knew the words for sand and sky, but even one year seemed to stretch into infinity in his mind’s eye. Two hundred of them seemed… unimaginable.

 

The floor underneath him lurched and all the standing humans fumbled trying to stay on their feet. The spokeswoman in the cockpit straightened up in her seat, tearing the helmet off her head.

 

“We’re here!” she chirped.

 

Before he could inquire where “here” was, she unbuckled her seatbelt and was out of the vehicle like a shot, followed by someone’s angry: “For fuck’s sake Dani!”

 

The human leader followed her pilot out, and he peeked over the edge of the vehicle to see what was going on.

 

The desert in front of him was bisected by a line of floating vehicles. Some of them were about the same size as the one he was currently driving, but most were at least thrice that size. There must have been couple dozen of them racing across the desert, big ones being orbited by smaller ones.

 

As he watched one of the smaller ones separated away from the caravan and headed towards the human leader who in the meantime managed to catch up to the excitedly bouncing spokeswoman. It slowed to a spot in front of them and another human jumped out of it and approached them.

 

He tried to listen in on what they were talking about, but as the human leader started recounting how they met him, he quickly lost interest and went back to watching the rest of the caravan move by them.

 

Things moved quickly after that. The humans finished telling their story, and the other human, who turned out to be the leader of the caravan, offered to let him ride on one of the cargo vehicles instead of with humans, which he gladly took. He didn’t have all his questions answered by a long shot, but he needed some time alone to process the answer that he did get.

 

The caravan was going fast, but nowhere near the speed of the vehicle they used to get to it, allowing him to lean out of the top watching the scenery as it raced past.

 

It also allowed him to listen in on the humans in the smaller vehicle that was riding in front of the one he was on. By the time the first human finished swearing about how he was “one creepy bastard,” he started to suspect he had a lot better hearing than humans suspected.

 

The caravan entered a tunnel, the second sun’s light quickly being swallowed by the darkness, only broken up by the blue lights of the vehicle’s undersides reflecting off the strangely smooth floor.

 

 _Volcanic glass._ He thought, when the human leader’s voice caught his attention.

 

“You were right Rook.”

 

There was a beat of silence, before she spoke again.

 

“When I told him about how he’ll get to kill vulfen if he goes with us… He just lit up. Like I just gave him the best gift in the world.” She sighed.

 

“I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.” The voice that responded didn’t sound like it hated to tell her so at all, there was a murmur from other humans sounding faintly agreeable “You can’t trust…”

 

“Shut up.”

 

The sharpness in spokeswoman voice made him turn towards their vehicle, even if he couldn't see into it. The other humans also quieted. Wherever the spokeswoman realized it or not, she suddenly had attention of everyone in earshot.

 

“You’re all here judging him based on a few words, judging _them_ based on rumors when they never did anything to any of you!” She was breathing heavily now, words sounding like the was pushing them past clenched teeth. “Half of you sitting here right now would be dead if The Second Sun hadn’t  sent them to protect us, and yet you still act like they are somehow threat to us?!”

 

There was nothing but silence following her outburst and she scoffed and walked… towards the back?

 

He abandoned any pretence of not being interested in the conversation and moved towards the front of his vehicle, hoping to see what was going on inside, just as the spokeswoman said: “They- He, is not dangerous to us.” and swung herself on top of the vehicle’s back wall.

 

He stopped in his tracks, tilting his head in confusion. Spokeswoman looked back and with proclamation: “And I’ll prove it.” she leaped onto his vehicle.

 

There was a chorus of panicked “Dani!” from inside the vehicle, and even he found his heart seizing with instinctive panic in the brief moment she was airborne, but there was no reason for fear. The spokeswoman cleared the small gap with no issue and climbed into the vehicle sitting down on some crates and smiling up at him.

 

He tilted his head to the other side, this time in bemusement, finding himself smiling back at her.

 

He noticed that she was again wearing the helmet, complete with cables leading back towards her original vehicle.

 

The human leader climbed after Dani, spitting curses all the while, but before she could follow her across the gap the vehicle  accelerated, widening the gap to a dangerous extent. She narrowed her eyes at him from the distance, but instead of wasting time trying to figure out what that look meant, he simply turned away and slid down to sit across from Dani.

 

“What was that all about?”

 

“Ah well you know,” She waved her hand dismissively, “just them talking about things they know nothing about and me getting fed up with it.” Her mouth curled, “They hear a bunch of rumors, talk to you for a couple minutes and suddenly they’re experts. None of them even saw a Warrior before this ya know?”

 

“Have you?”

 

Dani lit up at the question. “Yeah, actually! Sorry I didn’t pipe up before, but driving out in the desert is a lot more attention heavy than this.” she gestured at the cables leading out of the helmet. “To be fair there’s not much to tell. Me and a group of other people were being held hostage by Scratches, and a squad of Warriors came, killed them all and escorted us into safety. I mean…”

 

Her excited grin turned into something more subdued and she looked to the side. He didn’t say anything, simply waiting for her to collect her thoughts, and after a while she spoke again. “I mean it probably wasn’t anything special to them, you know? They probably had dozens of missions almost exactly like that just that week, but for me it was life changing. Or at least life saving.” she cracked a grin.

 

“How were they?” he asked. “The other Warriors?”

 

“Like,” she shook her head, searching for words, “Like angels. But not the nice soft ones, but original ones. Warriors of God, terrible and powerful and so, so bright.”

 

She shrugged her shoulders, “I can’t really do them justice, with words, unfortunately. But don’t worry, you’ll be meeting more Warriors than I’ll ever see in my life soon.”

 

She peaked over the edge of the vehicle and when she looked back at him, her grin was even wider. “Very soon in fact.” She pulled some sort of device out of her pocket.

 

“What’s that for?” he asked shooting a suspicious look towards the black slate.

 

“It’s for taking pics of you seeing the Relay for the first time.”

 

He raised his eyebrows at her. “You can’t see my face.”

 

“Doesn’t matter.”

 

He quirked his eyebrows at her some more and then straightened up, looking forward where the tunnel's exit was getting closer and closer.

 

Dani did the same, hooking her arm through one of the handles and pointing the device at his face.

 

“Behold!” she said, as they crossed the threshold and were bathed in the Second Sun’s light again. “The Relay!”


End file.
